Advertising has become a pervasive part of our society. Since the 1950's when television (TV) was introduced on a mass scale to television viewing households, advertisers have had the ability to address and deliver advertising content to TV audiences. However, by the mid-2000's, as the Internet grew to hundreds of millions of users worldwide, and technology became faster and more efficient, a new smart client devices industry began to emerge with devices being connected (sometimes wirelessly) to the Internet, changing how many people view video content.
Advertisers seek to capitalize on this new industry by looking for ways to incorporate advertisements into a user's interaction with a smart client device. In the past, advertisements were strictly one-way communication. For example, if a user is interacting with a smart client device while viewing video content (either a television broadcast or via the Internet), there exists the opportunity to provide an advertisement to the user that is coordinated with the presentation and the video content. Traditionally, in direct marketing schemes using advertising content, a seller would register and maintain product metadata on a separate platform. Due to space-time constraints, the seller may not freely register and maintain such metadata. A way to purchase a product related to a television (TV) advertisement may be offered. However, a user searching for or purchasing a product during the content viewing experience may interfere with another user viewing the same content. Also, since current TV environments lack structural flexibility for users to search for information on the Internet or confirm an information search, offering a user interactive experience where users search for information or visit a shopping site to purchase the product may be limited and inconvenient.